Philips and Pegasystems improve patient care with IoT devices

Pegasystems and Philips have announced a new IoT partnership that will see the two firms offer healthcare organisations a new system they claim will better leverage connected devices and health data to personalise care and improve health outcomes.

According to the firms, care teams – from physicians and nurse practitioners to home caregivers and care managers – can identify potential health issues in the moment and coordinate a timely response to intervene and improve adherence to personal care plans.

The system will be available later this year and will support care managers and insurers to increase care quality and decrease hospital readmissions while also lowering total costs.

The firms gave a demonstration of the system at Pegasystems annual Pegaworld conference. A chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patient on inhaler treatment can self-monitor oxygen levels using a wearable device. At the same time, this health data is shared with the care team in real-time so they can quickly respond to patients in need.

IoT, wearables and improved healthcare

“We’re entering a new paradigm in healthcare, one in which devices and wearables can help care teams extend their services well beyond the doctor’s office,” said Alan Trefler, founder and CEO, Pegasystems.

“By working with Philips to leverage its deep expertise in connected health and by connecting our solutions to the HealthSuite Cloud platform, we enable new levels of collaboration across the entire health continuum to deliver differentiated personalised care that improves patient outcomes.”

Pegasystems can now use IoT to advance care management in new ways using connected devices – from pulse oximeters and glucometers to body scales and fitness trackers – via the Philips HealthSuite Cloud platform.

Through the combination of clinical data, industry best-practice care guidelines and advanced analytics, Pega Care Management will provide a patient’s health management team with a view of the patient’s health and care plans so they can extend personalised managed care.

Jeroen Tas, CEO of the connected care and health informatics division at Philips, said that the collaboration of Philips and Pega is a “next step to deliver successful and efficient population health management to unify the silos of personal health and clinical data so every member of a person’s health care team can take advantage of data in the context of the patient’s broader health.”

Manfred Kube, head of M2M segment & offer marketing, Gemalto, told Internet of Business that machine to machine (M2M) technology can help patients benefit from specialised services in a timely fashion, wherever they are, even if they’re in a remote area.

“Complementing face-to-face visits, M2M technology establishes an additional communication channel between clinicians and patients, removing geographic barriers and enhancing the quality of service delivery,” he said.